
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
quote by Saint Augustine

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
quote by Saint Aurelius Augustine

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Upon the Silent Woman
Hear, you bad writers, and though you not see,
I will inform you where you happy be:
Provide the most malicious thoughts you can,
And bend them all against some private man,
To bring him, not his vices, on the stage;
Your envy shall be clad in some poor rage,
And your expressing of him shall be such,
That he himself shall think he hath no touch.
Where he that strongly writes, although he mean
To scourge but vices in a laboured scene,
Yet private faults shall be so well express'd
As men do get 'em, that each private breast,
That finds these errors in itself, shall say,
'He meant me, not my vices, in the play.'
poem by Francis Beaumont

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

As Far As My Eye Can See In My Body’s Senses
All the trees all their branches all of their leaves
The grass at the foot of the rocks and the houses en masse
Far off the sea that your eye bathes
These images of day after day
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The transparency of men passing among them by chance
And passing women breathed by your elegant obstinacies
Your obsessions in a heart of lead on virgin lips
The vices the virtues so imperfect
The likeness of looks of permission with eyes you conquer
The confusion of bodies wearinesses ardours
The imitation of words attitudes ideas
The vices the virtues so imperfect
Love is man incomplete
poem by Paul Eluard

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Difference Between You And Me....
perhaps we have the same vices,
we write to confuse, but we drive some points,
like nails on sandalwood,
not those rusty ones that make the sound
of 'trying hard'
we are original in these, competing only with
our own syllables,
we may have the same vices
i may have written all those words to confuse
but mine is a series of stairs
leading to the door to the room to the window
to the skies
and then everything i am is gone
but you do not notice it
you think that i am still the chair and the table
the napkin and
the spoon.
my wings are hands
my hands are winds,
my mind are planes,
my soul a boat,
what i write are mirages
you see, you cannot touch.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sonnet- You Can't Have Opposites
When vices, virtues are but parallel lines,
The former moves backward, latter forward;
No one can take the mixture of such wines;
No one can be both fish and also bird.
There isn't a hybrid of vices, virtues;
There isn't a place where both of them can meet;
Just one and only one, a man must choose;
You can't have Heaven's joy and Hell's great heat!
The virtuous way is like climbing a hill;
The road to vice is like slipping from one;
While God rewards Heaven as former's bill,
The latter, yields hell's eternal fire-den!
One can't be both a good and bad a man;
You try to have Heaven and hell, how can?
poem by John Celes

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Am Man
I’m subject to the same failings
The same fears and vices of man
I’m no different, nothing special
I don’t expect to be kept exempt
Fitting into society not my forte
I’m awkward around others
Mistrusting or cautious
I sneak off into my own world
Some find me strange
I bleed and I can cry at times
I feel as many others feel
Sadness and joy no strangers
Passion burns like a fire
In the innermost of my loins
Words I speak and spit them
Feelings I hold tightly to
Just for the experience
That and I don’t know why
Or how to express them freely
I’m a man flesh and blood
I have my vices and doubts
I have feelings as well
However I may appear to others
Should I not be counted
As one amongst them
poem by Matthew Holloway

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ladder To The Sun
From the very start
Came Earth parted
Broke up into pieces and
I was sure I could have missed it
It could risked it
But I put myself into your hands
Cause you're not just anyone
You're a ladder to the sun
You're not just anyone
You're a ladder to the sun
I can run my courses
Opposing forces
Then I...
If you want me you can have me
Oh take me, oh baby grab me
Cause if you want me then you can have me
Cause you're not just anyone
You're a ladder to the sun
You're not just anyone
You're a ladder to the sun
you cannot run
I had it all and I risked it
I had it all and I risked it all
And I risked it all
And I risked it all
A ladder to the
A Ladder to the sun
A ladder to the
A ladder to the sun
A ladder to the
A ladder to the sun
And I risked it all
A ladder to the
A ladder to the sun
And I risked it all
I risked it all
I had it all
I risked it all
A ladder to the sun
song performed by by Coldplay

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us.
William Shakespeare in King Lear

Submitted by Dan Costinaş
Vote! | Copy!
Sonnet: Vices
’Tis easy slipping down any ladder;
’Tis easy to tumble down the hillside;
’Tis easy to fall down from a tree-top;
’Tis easy to slip off footboard of bus.
’Tis hard to climb the rungs of Life’s- ladder
’Tis hard to ascend the steep mountain- side;
’Tis hard to climb the slippery tree-trunk
’Tis hard to keep Balance on alcohol!
’Tis hard to maintain virtues in one’s life;
’Tis hard to maintain the balance of mind;
’Tis hard to do just the good things in life;
’Tis hard to keep off from wine, women, sex.
’Tis easy to contract vices on Earth;
’Tis hard to shake them off, even by stealth.
poem by John Celes

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Murmurs Of A Tired Academician
in the far village
the mob rules, the
majority are not
educated, and they
build cockpits near
the church to shame the
priest, and on some religious
hours, they put the cocks into
that grand fight, and they shout
and stamp their feet
until their own Christ declares
who the winner is
meanwhile the lonely man
puts into writing what
he cannot really understand
why the undesirable is famous
why the vices prevail
why fights are exciting
the men come out from the
cockpit
smelling sweat and
taking dead fighting cocks
and losing money
and when they arrive
to their homes
there is nothing to eat
and tomorrow there
is nothing to spend
the violence of vices
the silence of so few
the death of a good education
the triumph of drunkenness
when you bring this out
in the open
the mob shall kill you
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot.
quote by Horace Greeley

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
He who busies himself with things other than improvement of his own self becomes perplexed in darkness and entangled in ruin. His evil spirits immerse him deep in vices and make his bad actions seem handsome.
quote by Ali ibn Abi Talib

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!



Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.
Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.
quote by Augustus Hare

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.
quote by R. Buckminster Fuller

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!